


Sardines

by calicadria



Category: Endless Summer (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 08:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11710212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicadria/pseuds/calicadria
Summary: Lila suggests a team bonding activity. Quinn thinks it's a pretty good idea.





	Sardines

**Author's Note:**

> so i wanted to write about this ever since ES book one came out and I thought I'd go ahead and finish it up in light of the soul-wrenching new chapters. You all deserve some Quinn fluff if you've got even HALF the anxiety about this that I do

You did not expect to spend your evening in a cleaning closet, pressed deep into a dark corner with the handle of a vacuum cleaner digging into the small of your back. Then again, you also didn’t expect to spend the last few days stranded on an uninhabited desert island with your best friend and eleven strangers. Perhaps this was simply destined to be a week of surprises.

When Lila suggested a group bonding game, you’d immediately expected everyone to shut her down, but Quinn had stepped up immediately and suggested you all play sardines.

“We can have fun and explore the resort at the same time,” she reasoned, lowering some raised hackles with her soft speech. “And Lila’s right, it’s good for bonding. The team who goofs around together stays together!” She smiled so sweetly then that anyone who had been considering bailing out suddenly found themselves changing their minds.

Some were changing them back right about now, you expected.

The storage closet in the lobby was _tiny._ Far too tiny, even, for the handful of people hiding inside it right now, let alone the rest of the group that is slowly trickling in. There’s a loud thump from beside you and you skitter sideways a step, forgetting that there is nowhere to go but the cinderblock wall. You bump your head against a bucket hanging on a wall hook beside you and grumble a few choice words under your breath.

It’s too dark in the closet to see much, but it seems as if Grace slipped on a dusting cloth and fell into the opposite wall. There’s a pair of hushed voices as she thanks someone for catching her, and Aleister’s disembodied voice mutters something back under its breath. It takes all the restraint you have not to laugh at him. Has he _never_ spoken to a woman before in his life?

Light suddenly floods the room, and those of you in the closet blink to adjust to the brightness as the door swings open. Quinn stands in the doorway, grinning. “Found you!”

“Good job, Quinn!” Lila replies enthusiastically, and three of your closet-mates shush her.

“Do you want everyone to know where we are?” Michelle demands angrily.

“Would that be so bad?” Aleister mutters. “I mean, we’d all get out of this closet.”

As they argue under their breaths, Quinn slips inside, cutting through the bodies around you like a fish through water. You feel a lock of her hair brush your face as she slips into the corner between you and the wall, burrowing down like a rabbit.

“Comfortable?” you ask the shadow of her hunched form, and she giggles.

“I never got to do things like this when I was little,” she admits softly. “I thought the time was long past for me to have the chance to play hide-and-seek with my friends.”

You smile in the darkness, but knowing she can’t see you, take a seat beside her on the floor and rest a hand on the dark curve of her shoulder. “I’ll never be too old for this stuff. You ever want to play hide-and-seek, you know who to call.”

She laughs again, so sweet, and you lament the darkness for hiding her beautiful smile. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and you feel a softness against your cheek. The press of her warm lips lasts only a moment before she draws away, eyes catching the sliver of light from under the doorway and shining at you through the gloom. You watch their reflections disappear as her eyelids flutter closed, hear her breathing hitch as she leans slightly toward you, feel her waiting there in the dark for you to decide whether to kiss her or not. You hesitate a moment before leaning forward, aching for the warmth of her lips to grace you once again, but then the door swings open suddenly and the two of you spring apart. A blush threatens to blanket your entire face as you slide away from her, trying hard not to look guilty and miserably failing.

“’sup, bitches?” Craig enters without much preamble, shoving aside Michelle and Lila to take a spot in the center of the room. “What dumbass chose this hiding spot?”

“Do you seriously not remember who was _It,_ Craig?” Michelle demands, and you think you can see her folding her arms through the gloom.

“Sorry guys,” Raj pipes up. “Totally did not do the math on that one.”

“Shh!” Hisses another voice from the opposite corner. Estela crouches against the back wall, head resting against a crate, unmoving in the darkness. You wait for her to continue, but she says nothing else, falling back into silence.

You feel rather than see Quinn’s eyes on you through the gloom, but they bring you back to the matter that was at hand before you were so rudely interrupted.

“What was I saying?” she asks sweetly, softly, sounding for all the world like she can’t remember what you were doing before Craig walked in.

“We were…about…”

Your lips are inches from hers when the door is thrown open once again, and another figure stands in the doorway.

“No. Way. No fucking way am I last.”

“You’re not, Diego,” you reply, peeking at him around Lila’s legs and silently cursing him for his poor timing as you shuffle away from Quinn. “We’re still missing Sean and Zahra.”

“Cash.” Diego squeezes into the storage closet with the rest of you, and someone nearly trips over you as everyone shuffles into the corners to make room.

“Ow?”

“Ooh, sorry!” Grace calls down, sounding nervous. “Who did I hit?”

“Just me,” you assure her. “No one important.”

She giggles. “You’d better be joking, or I’m going to have to give you a pep talk.”

“I’m joking,” you reply.

Another moment passes. You’re scared to look at Quinn, to see her eyes shining at you through the darkness. Every inch of you aches to kiss her. You almost don’t care who is watching, if the door is open and the light is flooding in. You’d kiss her in front of all these people. But you’re also selfish enough to want to keep this moment private. You’re not ready to share her with anyone else just yet. Knowing that if you try to kiss her and are once again stopped, you’ll scream, you instead inch your fingers across the floor until they find her hand through the darkness. Quinn giggles a little next to you, taking your fingers in her palm, tightly protecting them within her closed hand. You feel the heat from her body as she leans against you, resting her head on your shoulder. Her hair smells like strawberry, her skin feels like silk. With every breath, you inhale her scent and let it wreathe around you, immersing yourself in every little affectionate thing she does. You’re close to cracking, to leaning over and finding her lips in the dark, when you feel the heat of her breathing against the hollow of your neck. Another moment and the warmth of a kiss, lips touching you like two soft butterfly wings, touches your neck, briefly, chastely, before pulling away and replacing itself higher up your throat. Quinn kisses her way along your neck, her mouth barely grazing your skin for fear of leaving a mark, until you feel yourself shaking under the strain of sitting still. You turn to find her in the dark, noses bumping suddenly together, and then her lips are on yours and you’re sharing a beautiful, messy, blind kiss that shoots little fireworks up your spine.

The door opens and you both jump apart, springing what you’re sure is a foot in the air.

It’s Sean, looking a little pissed off and tapping a foot against the tile flooring outside the closet.

“So, uh, what the hell, guys?” he asks, tone surprisingly casual for such an aggressive question.

“I’m sorry!” Raj wails from somewhere to your left. “Hiding here was, like, the second worst decision I’ve made all day!”

“What was the first?” Michelle asks incredulously.

“Dicey-looking burrito for breakfast,” Raj replies instantly. “That was…a colossal mistake.”

“Explains that smell,” Craig pipes up.

Michelle throws her arms in the air. “That’s it! Everybody out!”

You shuffle out at the back of the group, Quinn pressed tightly against you as you squeeze through the closet door. She giggles softly, lacing her fingers with yours behind your back where no one can see them.

“That was fun,” she breathes, close to your ear. “I wouldn’t mind doing it again sometime.”

“Getting stuck in the corner of a broom cupboard?” You tease her. “Or the other thing?”

She smacks you on the arm good-naturedly. “Obviously the other thing.”

“Wouldn’t mind continuing the Other Thing in my room later, if you’re up for it.”

She beams at you, her wide blue eyes dwarfed by an enormous smile. “Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”

“It’s a date,” you affirm.

“I’d like that, too.” She clings to your arm and you laugh.

“One thing at a time!”

 

           


End file.
